Glitter and Light
by barkar
Summary: Scully contemplates her life after the X-Files, with the help of some basic physics. Set after season 8's 'Alone'.


It was a solitary piece of green glitter. She hadn't noticed it before; couldn't in fact remember any time for glitter in the damp, dank basement that had stolen so many years of her life.

No, that was unfair. She'd given those years up of her own volition. Hadn't she?

But now she leaned heavily against a desk, his desk, Doggett's desk, staring at an annoying piece of green glitter shining up from the floor. At least something is happy when all it can do is look up.

She chose his desk because she couldn't fathom ever touching _that_ desk again, the original desk. The desk that was Mulder's, and then hers, and now. . .no one's she supposed. Or maybe it was because she wanted to look at it in all of its mundane deskly glory, knowing full well she wouldn't really see it anymore after today. Or worse, that she would see someone else behind it.

But that damned piece of glitter kept distracting her attention from the memorizing and the non-touching. What the hell had Doggett done down here in the few days she'd been on leave? He'd spent most of his time stuck in Stites' animal caves, or in the hospital recovering his sight. You don't throw glitter at a blind man.

She would pick it up if she thought for a hot second she could actually bend that far, retain her balance, grasp the offending metallic demon, and right herself without falling over or passing out or squeezing the baby right out of her on the spot.

But that was action, and she was no longer a woman of action, not these days. Maternity leave had begun in earnest less than a week ago. She waited now. For everything. She waited for the baby to come. She waited for Mulder to do something, anything, where she and the baby and the future were concerned. She waited for Doggett to return from wherever he was so she could hand off the last pieces of the last X-files she'd ever work. She waited to see if he'd work them in her stead.

And all she had for company was a piece of green glitter that seemed ridiculously happy with itself when it had no right to be. Maybe she could eradicate it; use her foot to dislodge it and slide it under his desk. Or maybe she'd get lucky and it would stick to the sole of her ugly ballet flat, a size bigger than her usual shoe, and she'd leave it in the lobby on her way out. Where someone might enjoy it.

She pushed herself off the desk and walked toward it. It disappeared, the little bastard.

No, she was just blocking its light. She seemed to do that a lot lately, to many things. She held fast the tenet that she'd held Mulder back for years. He professed not, but still.

Worry and concern for her hampered Skinner in those early days after Mulder disappeared, and his revelations, she feared, had sent him into a full-fledged career tail spin at the bureau.

And Doggett, well he made it through this first case just fine, thank you very much, with not so much as a how do you do from her. Of course. Trying to be paranormal guidance counselor had only succeeded in blocking out his investigative talent.

Damned glitter. She had no idea where it was now. Yet another thing to chase. Well, not today. Probably not again for a long, long time. At least dead bodies didn't run. Well, those outside of X-files cases, anyway.

After a slow spin in place to take in the full room once more, she drifted back to Doggett's desk and leaned again. And it reappeared to mock and beam at her.

If you can't beat it, study it. An old mantra from her early days with Mulder, when she was so damned perplexed she found it daunting to dress herself in the mornings.

Her physics-trained eye lined up the exact beam of light that must be shining directly on the glitter and the angle that light traveled to reach her eye. She mentally dissected the spectrum of light until she found green and pulled up its properties from the depths of her memory.

You should have been more malleable. That was what the depths told her.

Even light bends.

Unless it doesn't bend, just bounces back at you. It all depends on the surface it hits.

She sighed, settled down further on the corner of the desk. The chair was his, off limits, though she longed to sink into it while she waited. She glanced over her shoulder once more at the well-worn leather of Doggett's desk chair. He'd brought it in from home or his old office or wherever, so she assumed that, like the rest of the office was to her, his chair was sacrosanct to him. She refused to violate what was his. Well, any more than she already had.

The wells in her life were growing in number. She'd have to mind not to fall into one of them.

She turned back to the glitter, and her life became a litany of surfaces reacting to light.

Mulder. He refracted. He never just took in what you showed him. He had the power to bend and change light, and he insisted on it. But in doing so, it all had to pass right through him, taking little pieces on the way out. It changed him as much as he changed it, and he was not the same person he once was. There was tension, now, when they were together. Perhaps there always was, but the work served to hide or diffuse it. She found it difficult to carry out a normal conversation with him. She'd come close to throwing him out of Lamaze class when every gambit she tried was turned into a joke or a warning or a conspiracy. Mulder's refractive lens was the isolating core within him, and she was losing faith that she would find a way in.

But more than her own hurt feelings, she could see that being a full-time refractor was taking its toll on Mulder. He was refusing to take in the full scope of his abduction ordeal and process it. He was stuck trying to bend it into something else, or maybe bend his life back into what it was before he disappeared, before he died, and if he kept that up, he would never heal; would never be a proper father to his son.

Fathers and sons. Sons and fathers. Her thoughts turned round to her current, well. . . other former partner.

Doggett reflected. She'd figured that out early. At first she thought so in a derogatory sense. He was the shallow, bureaucratic yes man; a by the book, no questions asked ass-kisser who shined back to you whatever you asked him to. Nothing but a thin veneer of silver and polish.

She knew him better now, knew there was a depth to him that no flat mirror could have. Sure, he was ripe with reflective qualities. Give him respect, and he'd show you the same. Treat him rudely, be secretive, or lie, and he would not hesitate to throw those qualities back to you. Such was his sense of justice and fairness. He gave you the benefit of the doubt, but would not be a doormat. He'd always call you on your crap without taking it as a personal affront. Unless you meant it as one, which she had on occasion.

But he was more than that, at least where she was concerned. Doggett took her in, assessed her thoroughly, stripped away the bullshit, and reflected her own truth right back to her. It angered her. His surface might have appeared flat and reflective, but inside he was downright parabolic, and it terrified her sometimes, too. He was a mirror to the deepest core of her, and she probably should have taken more time in front of him to primp and pretty her soul. Most of the time she just didn't want to face what she had become; didn't want a stranger to school her on her fate. It made her hate him, just a little.

She felt the baby shift within her. Ah, the baby, her baby. Never one to allow himself to be out of mind for more than a few moments. Her baby was made of light. She hoped he absorbed all of the light she had to give. And none of the darkness. The membranes, she thought (or was it hoped?) had some magical filtering power to send all of the happy warm thoughts in and deflect all of the darkness and strife and tears.

What kind of mother feeds her baby evil?

She dragged her palm lightly down the full circumference of her belly and offered up one more in a long line of apologies to a child not yet born. Mommy's sorry, for so very much. But today it's for surrounding you with darkness, or stealing your light, or whatever else she's doing wrong where you're concerned, because she's sure she's doing something wrong.

But maybe it wasn't about a choice among reflecting and refracting and deflecting. Maybe the truth of it is that you have to know how to do all three, and know when as well. All this time, she thought she'd had to choose. . .

Then again, light might be too fickle an investment for what was left of her treasure, what she hadn't already squandered on repressed memories and conspiracies. Light was ethereal. It warmed you, but refused to wrap itself around you to hold you while you cried. It could chase the gloom away after a hellish nightmare, but would not, could not, grasp your hand and pull you out of the depths of your despair.

There was a reason, after all, that she left physics for medicine. The math and science intrigued her, but they were too great a distance from humanity. Staring up at the stars or down into your calculator did not connect you with your fellow man. One often got lost in the insulation of theory.

She was elated to stumble upon pathology during a clerkship. It was paradise for her. She could help people while interacting with them on her own terms. There were no distraught families to console, but there were flesh and blood and organs and connections to humanity.

Dead humanity, sure, but we all have our niches to fill. Still, she touched them, held silent conversations with some of them, the more horrendous cases, to get the both of them through it. She helped them answer their last unasked question: why did I die?

 _Why did you die?_

The thought struck her like a smack in the face. Is that how she saw herself? The walking dead? Waiting for life to pass her by until she physically passed on? Yes, of course. She waited now. For everything. But why did she die? What killed her? Or who? Maybe she killed herself. The image of a firing squad materialized before her, and she saw herself standing front and center, rifle at the ready, just like the others. Yes, many bullets contributed to the death of Dana Scully.

What could save her? Or who?

She looked at her watch and her eyes once again found that blasted piece of glitter, clinging to the carpet with all its might, lest it be dragged away before its shine was dulled; its work, done.

Well, the glitter wasn't going to resuscitate her life. Neither was applying the principles of the physics of light. That was just another form of waiting while feeding her mind some candy, telling herself she was still useful, still sharp, still smart.

No, she needed to keep her focus here around her, not the reaches of space or books or body cavities. She needed roots, and rolled her eyes at the apt but sour analogy at a time when her ankles swelled into tree trunks as each day marched on, seemingly before her eyes.

What rooted normal people? People who hadn't been shattered into a million pieces? People who hadn't been responsible for the murder of their sisters; who hadn't conceived miracle babies; who hadn't seen the dead brought back to life?

People.

People rooted people. People at their jobs and in their families and around them on the street. She decided on the spot to see Skinner before she left, a purely social call to check on how things were for him these days. She also decided to call Mulder and invite him over for dinner and accept whatever bend he might throw her way. And she might as well commit to keeping in touch with-

Speak of the devil – she heard his footsteps plodding down the crowded corridor, echoing off the cabinets and boxes.

"Hey, Agent Scully. Sorry to keep you waitin'. You should have grabbed a chair," he said while trying to pull his chair out for her.

"No. No. It's OK, Agent Doggett." She waved off his offer, then paused, unsure of how to go about her next task. Nothing like being flat out honest about it. "But could you do, well, kind of an odd favor for me?"

"Sure" he nodded, standing in front of her expectantly. She usually never asked for anything.

"Come over here," she patted the desk next to where she leaned. "Sit."

When he'd done so, with not a little trepidation on his face, she continued. "A couple of favors, actually. First, please tell me you won't try to do this all on your own. That you'll call me if you need anything, even if it's to bounce ideas off or vent."

He nodded silently.

"Second," she pointed to the glitter on the floor, "you see that piece of glitter on the floor, out toward the middle?" He lined up his sight until he saw it too,

"Yes. . .?"

She twisted around and pulled some tape from his dispenser. "OK, this is the weird part. Would you pick that up for me?"

"Drivin' ya crazy, huh? Yeah I noticed it this morning, too." Doggett took the tape, bent down to the floor, and laid it down over the glitter, shaking his head just a bit. Of all things, she chose this to worry about.

"In a manner of speaking." When she saw him start to wad up the tape, she stopped him. "No, I'll take that," and she held out her hand, nodded to him with a small smile so she wouldn't seem quite so insane. "I've been staring at that thing for a while, and, well, let's just say that I'd like it to remind me of my thoughts."

He didn't respond, couldn't. He simply watched her take the tape and fold it in on itself, carefully placing it into her pocket. She'd probably put in the kid's baby book or some damn thing.

As she started to raise herself from the desk, he offered his hand, and she took the help.

"The last of my notes and all the files I had at home and Quantico are over…. there," she faltered, waving toward the other desk in the room; the desk that was not his and was no longer hers.

"You're welcome to stay, if ya want."

"Thank you, Agent Doggett, but no. I have to go up and see AD Skinner." She'd walked all the way to the door, feeling his eyes on her back the whole way, before she turned abruptly. "One more thing, Agent Doggett?"

"Uh huh?" He was back to leaning on his desk, in the same position she'd occupied moments before.

"Do you mind if I check in with you from time to time? See how're you're doing down here?" She noticed his expression darken. He'd heard 'check up', not check in. "It's been an honor to meet and get to know you, Agent Doggett, and I'd hate to lose that just because we no longer work the same cases or share an office."

His concern shifted to surprise, then widened into a smile. "I'd like that, Agent Scully, I really would."

She nodded, took one last look around the office and met his gaze again. "OK, then Agent Doggett, I'll see you… later." And with that she turned and walked down the corridor to the elevator, hand slipping into her pocket to grasp the slip of tape. The one with the solitary piece of green glitter.


End file.
